by Ashley West
Sorrin didn’t speak, but he made a point of holding her gaze and then flexing, straining just a bit as he broke the ropes that held his wrists. He’d been hoping to avoid that, wanting to conserve his strength for other things, but she’d left him very little choice in the matter with her flippant tone.
Still holding her gaze, he massaged his wrists, taking some degree of pleasure in the way she was gaping at him. He might not have been in his prime, but he was surely still impressive when it came to a human. She’d probably never seen someone as large and strong as him.
“Wow,” she breathed, and Sorrin shrugged a shoulder.
“They cannot hold me.” As if to prove his point, he wrapped his fingers around the bars of the cell and gave a mighty yank. If there were any flaws in the design, then this would show them. It was standard training for a warrior, being able to get out of traps and prisons in the event they were captured, and he was sure the Camadors couldn’t best his training.
Sure enough, with a slight groan, the door popped out of place enough that he could work it open, and he smiled, satisfied. Not that he would admit it, but getting captured had been a blow to his pride, however short his imprisonment would actually be, and he was glad that he wasn’t completely rusty when it came to his former skills.
The human woman was watching with her mouth open now, and when Sorrin glanced back at her, something flickered in her eyes. She moved closer to him, looking like she was one step away from bursting into tears.
Great stars, he didn’t want to deal with that.
“Please take me with you. I...I haven’t seen my family in months. I don’t even know if they’re alive or dead or what. I don’t know anything that’s happening down there. I just want to get out of here.” She paused, biting her lip and looking down once more. “I can help you, you know.”
“Help me,” he said, voice dry. “And how will you do that?”
“Unless you plan to take them on all by yourself, you’re going to need human help. Humans aren’t going to just trust you because you say they should. You’re not from here, and we’ve all learned a hard lesson about how people from other planets are. We’re not so trusting.”
“You’re trusting me right now,” Sorrin pointed out. “Or trying to. How do you know I don’t mean to kill you once we’re away from here?”
“Because you’re their prisoner, too. And right now, any enemy of theirs is a friend of mine. You don’t know what they’re like.”
Sorrin snorted softly, shaking his head. “Yes,” he said, deadly serious. “I do. I know more than you how they can be.”
“They’re so…” The woman trailed off with a shudder.
“I know,” Sorrin replied. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his head. He wasn’t meant to get involved with the humans, but she had a point. The Camadors had gotten stronger in the time since he’d last fought with them, and they had been plenty strong then, too. There was no way he would be able to take them down all on his own. Humans weren’t made for this kind of fighting, but the girl had a point. The humans had a grudge now, which would make them powerful allies. Perhaps if he contacted Halphia… She’d be pleased he’d come to his senses at least, and could do something about getting them some help. It didn’t set well with him, since he wanted this revenge for himself and not for anyone else to help with, but he could mull that over later. For now, he—they—needed to get out of there.
"Fine," he said, relenting. Letting her out with him didn't mean he was agreeing to help her or the rest of the humans. It just meant that he wasn't leaving an innocent woman in the clutches of evil creatures who deserved to be burned alive for the atrocities they'd committed. At least she wasn't insisting that they go and rescue the rest of the humans on top of it.
Sorrin pulled the door fully open, wincing when it scraped against the floor with a grating sound that was sure to alert the Camadors to their presence.
He waited, holding a hand up to the human woman so she wouldn't move. After a few long moments, it became clear that no one was coming. A stroke of luck.
"Did you see where they put my weapons?" he murmured to her, not looking at her as he scanned the room, trying to see if there was a window or something to help their escape. Jumping out of it was not the best plan, and he was hoping for something else, but if it came down to it, he'd take a broken arm over being trapped here.
"Yes," the woman said, and she eased past him and out the cell door on light feet.
Sorrin wanted to hiss at her to come back, but she darted out quicker than he would have expected and then made her way to the corner where there was a chest. Judging from how she popped it open with very little effort, it wasn't even locked.
He bristled at the insult of that. As if they didn't even have to lock things down to keep him out of it. Underestimating him was going to be their downfall.
With his weapons back in hand, he felt better, and he made his way to the window, peering out of it to see how far of a jump it would be.
Pretty far, as it turned out, and he made a face, putting that firmly in the 'last resort' category.
“You’re not serious,” the woman whispered, looking at him with alarm. “We can’t jump. It’s gotta be pretty high up.”
“We’re not jumping,” Sorrin assured her. “Yet.”
Judging by the look on her face, she was less than reassured. “What if they catch us?”
“They won’t.”
Confidence went a long way with being a warrior. Sorrin had seen plenty of fights end because one party was better at intimidating the other with the sheer amount of confident bravado they exuded. Some of it was warranted, and, as always, some of it was not. Sorrin was hoping that his confidence would be enough to keep his human companion from getting too concerned about their safety. Now that he had agreed to get her out, he meant to do just that.
Speaking of, he couldn’t continue to think of her as ‘that human woman’ because it was inconvenient, mostly. If they were going to escape together, and Sorrin was going to let her help, then they were going to have to be on a first name basis. Or at least a name basis.
“What are you called?” he asked her as he opened the door to the room they had been held prisoner in and peered out. No guards. Curious.
“Abigail,” she replied softly. “Abby.”
“Abby,” Sorrin repeated. Odd name. “I am Sorrin.”
“Sorrin. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Mm.” They didn’t really have time for more pleasantries than that, and so they kept moving. It was curious and a bit concerning that there were no guards down the hall they were walking through. Nor were there any at the stairwell that led them to the lower floor of the building they were in.
In fact, they made it all the way outside without running into a single guard, and Sorrin found that perplexing.
His instincts told him that something wasn’t right. It was never this easy to break out of a place, and it should never have been this easy to get past the Camadors.
More than likely there was going to be some kind of trap waiting for them, the same way there had been a contingent of Camador guards waiting for him when he climbed the ladder up.
Going back down the ladder wasn't an option, so they were just going to have to try to get as low as they could and then jump for it. He decided to wait until it was clear that there was no other option before he mentioned it to Abby.
In the end, there was no trap. There was jumping, but Sorrin wrapped Abby up in his arms and managed to get them on top of a relatively flat roofed building just under the floating city. He was a bit bruised from the landing, hitting his shoulder hard, but Abby seemed to be fine, and more importantly, they were free.
It was easy work to make their way down and out of the building, and Abby looked somewhat overwhelmed to be standing on the ground again. She looked around her with wide eyes, taking in the sights, and Sorrin wondered how long it had been since she'd been captured.
Something to ask her la
ter, perhaps. For now, they needed to move before the Camadors snapped out of whatever strange complacency they were in and decided to come after them.
"Is there somewhere we can go?" Sorrin asked. They could head back to his ship, he supposed, but that would be the first place anyone would look for them. It was better to try and blend in. To be as inconspicuous as possible until they had a plan.
Abby nodded. "Yeah. At least...I think so. I have an apartment, but it's been a while, so..." She shrugged, but there was real sadness in her face.
Sorrin understood.
"Can you take me there?" he asked.
Abby nodded again. "Follow me."
They made their way through the streets, and Sorrin noticed it was less crowded here than it had been where he'd landed. People were scarce, and he supposed that made sense, considering. If he'd been human, the last thing he'd want to do is continue to live under the floating city.
Buildings were abandoned, the people they did see looked frightened and jumpy, and Abby moved through it all with wide eyes, like she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Is it very different?" Sorrin asked her when they had been walking for a while.
She nodded again, apparently determined that they were leaving it at that.
He wasn't going to press her to talk about it more if she didn't want to, and it seemed like she didn't want to. After being locked away for however long it had been, she probably wasn't used to life on the outside, so he let her get acclimated. As long as they kept moving, it was fine with him.
The people they passed were alarmed at the sight of him, that much was obvious and Sorrin tried to make himself seem smaller for a little while before giving that up as a bad job. There was no way he was going to look less intimidating, so he settled for looking competent. Maybe something in his bearing would show them that he was on their side and they didn't need to be afraid of him.
Judging from the way people hurried on their way, that was going to have to be a work in progress.
Abby led them to her building, which was surprisingly abandoned. She was quiet as she made her way up to the place where she had lived before all of this, seemingly surprised to see that all of her things were still there. She didn’t say anything other than a soft ‘we can stay here’, which Sorrin acknowledged with a nod and then he left her to her own devices while he settled in to think.
Chapter Six: Decide
The first thing Abby did when she got back to her apartment, strange alien warrior in tow, was cry in her bathroom. It had been five months, and somehow everything was still there. Her power still worked, the water still ran, even her cable and internet hadn’t lapsed. She didn’t know how that had happened or why it was happening, but she wasn’t going to question it too hard. Not when it made her life easier.
Everything was so familiar, even if nothing smelled the same anymore, and she had to take a minute to soak it all in. She was home.
She was home, but she wasn’t free, and that would take some dwelling on later.
The second thing she did was plug her phone into the charger. It had been months since she’d seen the screen light up or heard the welcome sound of the phone turning on, and it took a good ten minutes for her phone to process all the voicemails and text messages that had been sent over the course of her imprisonment.
Unsurprisingly, most of them were from her parents and sister, begging her to call them back, to respond to their texts, hoping for some sign that she was okay.
Abby stared down at the screen, unsure. Her first impulse was to call them, to make sure they were still okay after all this time, and to let them know that she was alright. But she hesitated. Was she alright?
Honestly, it was so hard to know.
She was home, but she wasn’t free, and the looming threat of the Camadors was just as present as it had been when she was in their clutches. Abby wasn’t foolish enough to believe that just because she was away from them, their expectations had changed. She’d been moved from the larger cell with everyone to the smaller one with just Sorrin for a reason, and she knew there was a reason that they hadn’t been stopped on their way out, too. This was what they wanted to happen. They wanted her to escape with Sorrin and to report back.
This was all such a mess.
For the most part, Sorrin was a considerate house guest. He spent the first evening staring at the wall with an intense expression on his face, and Abby let him get on with it. She didn’t know how much to trust him, yet, and she didn’t know what he would do when he found out the real reason they were stuck together. While her words to him in the cell had been genuine, she had wanted to get out of there more than anything, she couldn’t deny that she had played it up so he would help her. If he’d escaped without her, Abby didn’t want to think about what the Camadors would have done. To her, or to the planet. It was hard, knowing that the fate of the world basically rested on your shoulders.
Exhausted, Abby fell into a deep sleep early that night, leaving Sorrin to his own devices.
“To the Void with this thing!”
Abby jolted awake at the yell, heart pounding. It took her several long seconds of looking around in confusion to put together where she was, and her heart leapt and then plummeted as she remembered her predicament. A glance at her phone, still plugged in on the nightstand with the rapidly pulsing message light. But that didn’t do anything to make her feel better, and she let out a soft sigh and flopped back against the bed.
She couldn’t avoid thinking about this forever. She was going to have to—
WHAM!
Her bedroom door slammed open, interrupting her thoughts and making her jerk with surprise. Her heart raced for the second time in less than five minutes, and she looked up with wide eyes to see Sorrin standing in the doorway, dripping wet and—yep—completely naked.
“What are you doing!?” she demanded, not sure where to look. His face was a good place, probably, but for the life of her, she couldn’t make herself focus. She’d just about gotten used to his odd skin color the day before, but now she could see everything from his bulging biceps to his chiseled chest, all the way down to his abs and hip bones and— She forced herself to look away before she saw anything she didn’t want to see. (Just how low did those tattoos go, anyway…)
“Your bathing chamber is broken,” he said, folding his arms as he continued to drip on her carpets. “There is no sensor for temperature, and the spray isn’t adjustable at all. As far as I can tell, the water has to be either frozen or boiling, and that is not an effective way to get clean!”
He was ranting, and she was staring, confused and disoriented. Abby had gotten used to the monotony of being a prisoner, and this much excitement and noise was wreaking havoc on her poor nerves.
“What are you talking about?” she asked finally.
He glared at her. “Your bathing chamber.”
“My…” It clicked in her head after several seconds of staring. “Oh. My shower? What’s wrong with it?”
“Weren’t you listening to anything I just said?”
“Honestly? No. You burst into my bedroom not wearing anything, so excuse me for being distracted.”
He arched an eyebrow at that and then looked down at himself. “My apologies.”
“It’s fine. Look, can you just…” She flapped her hands at him in a shooing motion. “Not be here right now? I’ll fix the shower for you, but I need five minutes to wake up.”
Sorrin inclined his head. “Very well.”
Abby waited until he had disappeared to let her head fall forward into her hands. Honestly, this was the most ridiculous thing that had happened to her in a long time. You know, if you didn’t count being captured and held prisoner by aliens and all that. Somehow that was different and less bizarre than having one in her home currently.
Things continued like that for the next three days. Sorrin learned the wonder of human technology, and was predictably disparaging of it, and Abby tried to figure out what she was
going to do. She still hadn’t talked to anyone in her family, and there was no sign of the Camadors coming after them, though she kept having the curious feeling that she was being watched. It made her jumpy and paranoid in all the worst ways, and it made it even harder to sleep.
When she got up in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning before the sun was even considering rising, she was somewhat comforted to see that Sorrin was also awake. Usually sitting on her couch looking annoyed and broody.
On the fourth night of this, she broke down and sat next to him on the couch, looking at the wall with him. It was the one where she’d hung her pictures when she’d moved in, and her eyes settled on a picture of her and her parents at her college graduation. It seemed like that had been forever ago at this point, and looking at it made unease settle in her stomach. She looked away.
“Why are you here alone?” she asked, needing something to say.
“Because this is my mission,” Sorrin replied simply.
“Just yours?”
He inclined his head and said nothing.
“But why?”
For a while he was silent, and Abby was sure he wasn’t going to answer her. That was fine. She was a veritable stranger, and for all they had been thrown together, he didn’t know if he could trust her, and honestly the answer was probably that he couldn’t. Abby didn’t have a plan yet, but her whole purpose here was to make sure he failed this mission.
“Because that is how it has to be,” Sorrin said finally.
There was something in his voice that made her think this was very important to him, and she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Not being killed along with the rest of her people was important to her, and for the moment, that was what had to be the most important thing.
“Well,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to figure out how to do this, then.” She smiled thinly and got up, suddenly wanting to be as far away from this conversation as she could. “I’m going to try to go back to bed.”
He nodded, and she fled.
What she needed was a plan.
Progress had to be made if either of them were going to get closer to their goals, and she needed to be two steps ahead of him to make sure this worked in a way that wouldn't end up with the world being blown up or something.